


I’d name the stars after you (Peonies Mania)

by rosemaldrge



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Canon Divergence - Post-Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Chelsea Flower Show - Freeform, Dr. Sirius Black, Established Sirius Black/Remus Lupin, Fluff, Fluff and Crack, Fluff and Humor, Healer Sirius Black, Hospitals, Hurt/Comfort, Kate Middleton - Freeform, Kisses, M/M, Morbid humour, POV Remus Lupin, Post-War, Remus Lupin Lives, Sick Remus Lupin, Sirius Black Lives, They/Them Pronouns for Sirius Black, Werewolf Remus Lupin, peonies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-18
Updated: 2020-09-18
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:42:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26527675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosemaldrge/pseuds/rosemaldrge
Summary: A Magical AU of sort where Remus woke up somewhere and was assaulted by a bush of peonies.
Relationships: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 5
Kudos: 52





	I’d name the stars after you (Peonies Mania)

**Author's Note:**

> Title is an appropriation of a line from Richard Siken’s poem ‘Snow and Dirty Rain’.

Remus woke up with flooded lungs. He spluttered as he gained consciousness, waves of nausea rising in his throat, a fresh bout of pain followed his coughing fit. He tried to blink his eyes open, but he was greeted by the sight of a blurry world. An odd and sods of eggnog yellow wall, curtains, and slate grey floor that reminded him of Christmas of all things. He shut his eyes tiredly and sighed for he knew where he was, he’d woken up here enough times to know that what followed would be nothing but a whirlwind of pain and hopelessness.

He chanced another deep breath, carefully this time. He took his time to inhale the stinging smell of antiseptic, iodoform, and death. There was another smell that caught his nose. It left an intoxicating linger on his tongue. Something sweet, and rosy, and a little spicy; all too good for his current little slice of pathetic existence. Remus inhaled again, desperate for the little sliver of hope, tinged rosy pink to wash away the acrid taste of pain. To offer him a risk of hope. He choked on another bout of cough instead of course, his chest rising and falling like a sailboat caught in a storm.

Tears of pain flooded his eyes, and he blinked them away. Not desperate enough to get rid of them by wiping them off his cheek though, no. He was exhausted and tired. If you ask him, he probably wouldn’t quite admit it, but he was quite done at the moment. He had quite enough of swinging uppercuts and throwing jabs at the bleeding adversary. He was quite finished thank you very much and he’d much rather take all the abuse lying down peacefully until it was time for him to be escorted down to the Field of Asphodel. So, that was what he did.

A pair of warm hands had quite the opposing idea though, and Remus found his tears being wiped away oh so very gently that it felt like he had imagined the brush against his cheek. Until the hands cupped his face, and started to stroke his cheekbones lightly.

“Re? You all right, love?”

Remus wanted nothing more but to reach and lace their hands together. But all of his body parts were organising a mutiny against him. An uprising against his want. Slowly, Remus inhaled a lungful of glass and molten silver. He could’ve sworn that his lungs rattled something funny and it ached deeply, cutting through his ribs and heart. A fresh fit of coughing ensued, and he winced as the pain set fire to every bloodstream, every nerve on his body. His shirt's collar started to feel damp. He squeezed his eyes shut, something stinging.

“Right, water. Drink up please, love.”

He reached up blindly and the hands guided him. One on his back, helping him to sit up and another holding a cup of iced cold water against his lips. Remus swallowed them slowly, and the cotton in his mouth dissolved. After, more out of habit than anything else, Remus leaned back and sunk into the arm that was then wrapped around his waist; and he sniffled into the strong broad shoulder and the dip of collar bones that he could draw a road map to and technical drawing of even when he was drowning in anaesthetics.

The hand on his back drew him closer and Remus sighed at the comforting familiarity, the soothing smell of bergamot and violet. He desperately wanted to see them, the person who had anchored his existence to this side of reality and he blinked his eyes open desperately, only to see a blurry messiah of mess. Remus whimpered impatiently and pressed his body even closer, and buried his nose into a tangle of silky hair. He let the wave of smell - of bergamot and violet, now roses with the lying undertone of lacehood, do what his eyes couldn’t; bask in the warm presence of the love of his life.

A soft pair of lips pressed against his right temple, and Remus shuddered at the contact. How he had dearly missed this, he missed this right now even in their arms, even when their lips were on his skin, spelling fires to rise up in the void of his belly. He started to tear up again.

“Re? What numbers are we up to now, love?”

Remus struggled to think for a bit, and he gritted his teeth as a fresh storm of nausea swept in with the sudden burden of task on his cerebrum. He ignored it and cleared glass and cotton from his throat and answered croakily.

“55?” He winced at the sandy baritone of his own voice.

This was a system that he and his doctor used to gauge where he was at - emotionally, and physically (also how strong his will was to stay alive that day). Remus and them adopted it, more out of practicality, of course and also the elegance of never having to ask out loud the utterly rude sentence of _‘Do you want to stay alive today or nah?’_ They used to do that all the time because let’s face it was crass and hilarious and that was just their morbid brand of humour. But it hurt the spectators to their love - their family and the barrage of nurses and doctors. So, they stopped.

In between his inner monologue of the morality of his and his love’s humour, they pressed their lips against Remus’ skin again. This time on his cheek, on his nose (another inside joke), and on Remus’ chapped lips (their favourite).

“How’s now?” They asked again. Remus could detect a slight tinge of familiar impertinence and couldn’t help it but smile at the ghost of lips that lingered on his.

“79,” he answered, with a slight cheeky grin on his face.

“Yeah? Well, I bet I can turn that into a nice solid ‘A+’ score.”

“I’m counting on it.”

As soon as the words left his mouth, Remus felt the press of soft lips brushing against his, softly and delicately at first, and Remus found himself struggling to keep up as it turned into something more urgent. His heart beat thunderously against his ribs, and he forced his lungs to work, to inhale glass and dust so that he could hang on to this, this something he was sure there was no name for it, as it was too fragile for one.

This was abjectly mortifying for him, and he did what he did best all the time, he ignored it and leaned into the kiss, more fervently, heatedly to chase away all his walking nightmare of the sand of time running out from under their feet. Unsurprisingly, Remus found himself gasping for breath seconds later, and he reluctantly broke the kiss and pulled himself back a little.

Miserably, Remus dared himself to open his eyes again, and this time instead of a clumsy charade of unappealing colours, he saw them. He saw _Sirius_ , or at least a blurry gossamer version of them, that sat in front of a large bush of blush-pink peonies that had no business whatsoever existing by a hospital bed bedside. Remus blinked at it.

For the first time since he woke up, Remus felt like he could finally breathe. So he did, he took the leap and breath in all of it, leaning even closer to Sirius’ body. The musk felt intoxicating in his lungs, but he didn’t cough up a storm this time. This time, he felt like he was half himself again. The feeling was so good that Remus almost forgot about his predicament, where he was, and the current clusterfuck of pain that resided in his body. He couldn’t help feeling carried away by the sheer joy of (almost) seeing Sirius.

His eyes stung however by the overexertion, and tears started brimming again. Remus took a deep slow breath and shut his eyes. He wouldn’t dwell on things he couldn't control. There would be no point to it. So, he rested his head on Sirius’ chest and focused on the _lub dub_ of Sirius’ heart. He sniffled and settled there, basking in the charted territory of affection and fondness; hands grabbing a handful of materials Sirius was wearing. This, this he could live with.

“Was that a dirty great bush of peonies I see behind you?” Remus asked after a tic. The flutters of pain had threatened to remake their grand entrance in his chest cavities again, and he needed distraction damn it.

“A bouquet,” Sirius corrected him gently, chuckling a little as one of their hands started to rub circles in the small of Remus’ back. They knew what was going on, of course.

“No it’s not, when it’s thrice bigger than your head,” Remus insisted into Sirius' jumper, he knew which one it was. He could tell from the friction of fabric on his hands. It was the gaudy blue one, made of soft Merino wool that James had gifted them the Christmas before last. It was a gag gift of sorts, considering. The jumper was adorned with a large picture of three cats wearing sunglasses in front, with the words ‘Cool Cats’ emblazoned underneath it.

James had given him a jumper too. It had a picture of a wolf making an obscene gesture, with a bubble dialogue that said ‘bite me’. James Potter was unrivalled in the department of overestimating how funny he thought he was. Though, no one had managed to step up to that pedestal, well, _since_.

Remembering that memory made Remus want to laugh and fetch up his imaginary dinner and he mumbled something out loud, something he wasn’t sure he would say if he weren’t painfully reminded of James and Lily and the _must-not-be-mentioned-tragedy_. He wanted to distract himself from a new, entirely different bout of pain to the one in his chest.

“‘S no mean feat that. Not much of anything is bigger than your head.”

“You wound me, my love. Peonies are your favourite, no?”

“Look, I know that most social constructs are foreign concepts to you pureblood lots. Usually, when people bring flowers, they don't uproot an entire bloody bush. Or when someone said they’d love to see that one Monet painting, they didn’t buy the sodding thing. They meant going on a trip to the National Gallery.”

“Still sore about that one, huh?”

“It was 12 million pounds and some!”

“Come off it. You know the galleon-pounds exchange rate works in our favour. Besides, now you can see it everyday.”

“I can still see it everyday if it’s at the Gallery too.”

“Nonsense. The commute is terrible.”

“What commute? We’re wizards.”

“Exactly. The whole _apparating_ and, and _floo-ing_ mess. Much easier to just buy the sodding thing. Besides, I’ve seen you admiring that bloody thing over tea every morning. You can’t tell me it's a waste then.”

“Merlin, you’re … you’re …”

“Insufferable?” Sirius supplied cheekily. Remus could tell from his voice that Sirius was pulling his very smug face. The one where he thought he’d wheedled his way out by winning on a technicality, and he was basking in it, _shamelessly_. Remus just _knew_ , even without looking.

“I was going to say impossible. But, yeah, that works too.”

“I’m sorry, love. It’s just that Kate insisted when she heard that I was visiting you.”

“Kate? Who’s Kate?!” Remus said in a decidedly unmanly manner, and quite as shrilly.

“Catherine. You know the one. Middleton. I’ve told you I went to Chelsea's Flower show.” Sirius said in a tone that implied Remus was being very silly indeed.

“Right. Of course. Silly me.”

“Babe. Come on. It was for charity. I nipped in and out and came right back here.”

“Still no reason for you to bring back a great dirty bush of them!”

“I’m sorry, love. I know I got a bit carried away sometimes. I just can’t help it. I know you love them, and they were just sitting there. The posho snobs wouldn’t even miss them, I swear.”

“There wasn’t even a ‘Kate’ was it? You’ve done it now. They’re going to haul your arse to the Tower of bloody London and have your head.”

“Remus, love. I’ve broken out of Azkaban. I’m pretty sure I’ll manage to finesse my way out of this one too. Besides, they’ve not chopped off anyone’s bits in years.”

“You -,” Remus started but he was rudely interrupted by a knock on the door.

“There they are now, Pads. Head to be rolled and tower to escape from and all that rot.” Remus said, almost half teasingly at him. Except, except he couldn’t help feeling worried. In his inebriated state he couldn’t quite tell if Sirius was having him on or otherwise. Damn his sodding head honestly. Sirius simply chuckled in response, and pulled him closer to press a kiss on the crown of his head, that smarmy bastard.

The door swung open and in came his medical entourage instead of the Queen’s Guard, thank Merlin. Remus could hear the tell-tale sound of the blood pressure monitor trolley moving across the room, the swish swash of the nurses uniform and the squeak of the nurses’ medical booties against the linoleum floor, as they walked towards them.

“Hullo Remus. How’re we feeling today?”

“Better.” Remus mumbled automatically on Sirius’ chest, like the liar he was. Slowly, he extracted himself from Sirius and he very nearly whined at the loss of contact; and he found Sirius’ hands on his waist helping to steady him. Remus turned to the direction of his doctor’s voice, pressed his lips together firmly and tried to pry his eyes open. He blinked, once and then twice with no succession. His vision was still blurry. So, he kept them shut.

He could feel the palpable tension in the room, eyes on him, waiting as the proverbial phoenix refused to rise from the ashes this time. He’d done this so much that he thought he would be quite over it by now. All this suffocating attention. Barrage of nurses coming in every few hours to pump his body full of antibiotics, and sodium chloride to keep the electrolyte level of his body at a decent level. Pills to be swallowed, various drugs in his bloodstream and wires tangled in his limbs. He was rather _sick_ of it.

“Remus?”

“I’m _fine_.” Remus insisted into the thin air in front of him. He could almost hear the collective silent sigh of everyone in the room in retaliation for his sheer stubbornness. He couldn’t find it in him to care. Sirius who’d kept a steadying hand on his back had started to draw circles on Remus’ back again. If he didn’t know any better, he’d said that Sirius had now developed a nervous tic. Not that they would though. Their pureblood upbringing would be far too through for such common banalities. Besides, it would be a rather bad show, wouldn’t it?

“Right.” His doctor said with forced cheerfulness that was quite fitting. “We’re going to check your blood pressure, see if you’ve responded to your new medication, take some more blood samples and then you can rest, all right?” his doctor continued, unfettered.

Remus could only nod and mumble his assent as the team of nurses began their clockwork production of checking his vitals and Remus preserved. Stiff upper lip and whatnot.

The machine beep-beeped menacingly, signaling that his blood pressure was low and Remus couldn’t help but sigh. He was feeling a bit worse for wear at this point. Sirius’ hand on his back stiffened. As usual, the nurse would try again, at the slim chance that it was a fluke. Still, it had the same result. Remus felt an overwhelming desire to bash the machine to pieces to give it what’s what and to cry simultaneously. It was beginning to feel disconcerting. As he plotted increasingly elaborated and barmy plans to destroy the offending machine, his doctor spoke again.

“Remus? We need to check on your lungs?”

Remus grunted and scooted further away from Sirius. He damn near snarled at the absence of Sirius’ hand on his back which was replaced by a cold stethoscope’ diaphragm. He listened to the banal instructions of breathing in and out and holding his breath because he just wanted this to be over with and it was taking far too long for his liking. After excruciating long minutes, the process was finally done with.

But Remus gained no comfort from it, knowing that the debacle would start again in t minus three hours. What pissed him the most was that, despite their wishes that he had a good rest, they do so love to come barging in every few hours. Even in the middle of the goddamn night.

He refused to listen to whatever his doctor’s diagnosis and instead sought comfort in Sirius’ arms once again. He knew that he was being unreasonable, and quite frankly, rather childish but he couldn’t find it in him to care. He could hear Sirius talking to the doctor, jabbing away in medical jargons that were not privy to the patients, his line of enquiries trite and strained and Remus found it not very difficult at all to just zone out again.

After the _must-not-be-mentioned-tragedy_ , and the whole Azkaban fiasco, Sirius had quite literally thrown up two fingers in the air in the general direction of the Aurors department and all things Ministry for Magic. Instead, he worked under the tutelage of his favourite cousin, one Madame Andromeda Tonks (née Black) and trained to become a healer. Years later, as Remus’ health started to deteriorate from the monthly excruciating werewolf transformation (they never lived long anyway, his kind) Sirius graduated from Imperial College London that allowed him to practice medicine. Remus couldn’t be more proud.

They spent the night of his graduation ceremony snuggling under their duvet and watching The Great British Bake Off reruns on channel four, and stuffing their faces full of Florean Fortescue’s Salted Caramel Blondie and Chocolate. The likes of which was a far cry from the all night rager they threw when Sirius and James managed to finish their Auror training. Remus drifted off to sleep that night to the sound of Sirius’ long suffering tirade (there might be more than chocolates and caramel in the ice cream, it seemed). They insisted that with their medical knowledge of both worlds, there would be no way they were going to let Remus succumb to his illness.

That night, Remus dreamt of a Field of Asphodel made of raining wilted peonies, burning moons, and rivers of melted ice cream. 

On that note of his inner monologue, the medical entourage had finally left and Remus was alone with Sirius again. He sniffled pathetically on one of the cool cats on Sirius’ jumper and started to gather the materials in his fingers. Flexing it this way and that way, as the intravenous cannula had started to make his left hand feel numb. Carefully, Sirius untangled his hand and massaged it.

“Re?”

“Yeah?”

“It’s going to be alright.”

“You can’t possibly know that.”

“ _I do_. You know what? I’d name the stars after you. Is it too difficult to believe? I’d move heaven and earth if you ask. It’ll be alright. I’ll make certain of it.” Sirius went on stubbornly, his Gryffindor courage never faltering for a second even after years of honest to god rotten life and tribunals.

Merlin, Remus knew he shouldn’t do this to him but he was so, so exhausted. Remus could only sniffle on the cool cats in return. It was getting harder and harder to believe. But he knew he would destroy Sirius if he said it out loud, and so he didn’t. The warring chaos would claim only one casualty, and it would be **_him_**.

Footnote:

The aforementioned great dirty bush of peonies, as eloquently put by Messr Remus John Black.

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and comments are appreciated :)
> 
> I'm also on tumblr [rosemaldrge](https://rosemaldrge.tumblr.com) <3


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